The Bangladesh cricket team's training for the upcoming New Zealand tour was disrupted by inclement weather yesterday.

There was a fielding session in yesterday's schedule at the Bangabandhu National Stadium (BNS) but Dav Whatmore's charges were not able to practice because of rain in the morning.

Instead, the players took part in a gym session at the Army Stadium.

There was more worrying news as more rain, courtesy of a low in the Bay of Bengal, was predicted for today which will jeopardise the planned extensive batting session on the central wickets of the BNS.

Originally posted by bourny3
opu_87 great faith mate. Nice input. Hint: a bit of sarcasm

But I don't really see any reason why what he said was not true.

Do you guys really know what are you talking about? Bangladesh has definitly shown improvement in test cricket! We have just achieved our first legitimate draw! Don't mix one-day performance with test please! Please give credit where it is due. 20 years back if some one had told me that Bangladesh would manage to draw a test in WI within 20 years............I would not have believed. But look we have achieved that impossible!
N.B. Bangladesh S*** in limited over matches. The selectors and the adminstrators are to share most of the blame. They cut the tree that bore the fruits (premier league) without planting any new one.

Why drop Alok Kapali and then again include him in the national preliminary side when you know that there is no premier league or national league to play for, and thus getting the means to return into form, and since you had dropped him in the end, why didn't you drop him earlier?

20 years back if some one told me that Bangladesh will manage to draw test in WI within 20 years............I would not have believed

Forget about 20 years, even during the end of year 2002, we would not have believed after the West Indies tour to Bangladesh if anyone had told me that we would be able to draw a test match against the West Indies team with Brian Lara included, in the year 2004 - only 2 years after we got whacked by Jeremine Lawson (his famous spell of 6 wickets for 3 runs), in the West Indies, I would not have believed him/her.

Originally posted by Optimist
Do you guys really know what are you talking about? Bangladesh has shown improvement in test cricket! We have just achieved our first legitimate draw! Don't mix one-day performance with test please! Please give credit where it is due. 20 years back if some one told me that Bangladesh will manage to draw test in WI within 20 years............I would not have believed. But look we have achieved that impossible!
N.B. Bangladesh S*** in limited over matches. The selectors and the adminstrators are to share most of the blame. They cut the tree that bore the fruits (premier league) without planting any new tree.

There is a reason to be frustrated here. Bangladesh had shown improvement in ODI too when they did so in the test. But after a relatively good patch, they have swooped w.r.t. performance in ODI. We didn't have a chance to know about the Test performance simply because they haven't played any test during this drop.

Have a look at the following results. These are last 23 ODIs that Bangladesh have played. I have segmented it in three parts, purely by results. In the first part you can see the huge margins by which Bangladesh was losing. Then in the second part you can see an improvedment considering the margin of defeat. And when you look at the last part, you will see aother spike in the margin.

Interesting to note that, the margin of defeat correlates with the strength of the opponent team. And the apparent purple-patch that in test arena fairly coincided with the not-so-impressive ODI-purple-patch too.

nihi, it is quite apparent from the statistics you presented that you did not follow Bangladesh's performance keenly. let me refresh your memories........
1. Bangladesh in Australia........................bangladesh lost all the one-day matches as well as the two test matches. But if you have seen the matches or followed those you would have known that each and everyone praised our performance in those tests. No body mentioned that we played well in the limited over matches and infact we did not.

2. bangladesh against England in Bangladesh...........................Did you follow the first test? Just before lunch on the fourth day when Habibul and Hannan (?) was batting and we have already overatken their first innings lead with nine wickets in hand, most of the English Journalists thought that England was in for a shock! That was a great achievement for the test babe. But not even once during the one-day series we were competetive. (Don't want to mention that bangladesh suffered from some dubious umpiring in that test match)

Conclusion: We can't draw any parallel between our one-day and test performance.

And if you have ever followed my posts..............I was always consitant in my opinion that our one-day team is far weaker than our test team, although the same players play for both the teams. The reason? Simple! These players did not play enough one-day games even in the domestic league. Therefore they did not have enough time to develop those bad habits that was so part and parcel of our earlier generation (good for test). On the other hand they are too inexperienced for the international level (bad for one-day). I flatly blame the adminstrators and selectors for the mess they made! I think a team comprised of the oldies (Mahmud, nannu, akram, bulbul, opi, shahriyar hossain, Al Shahhriyar) will still beat our national team in one-day matches.

I guess it was my fault that I couldn't make my point clear. Disagreeing with you, one thing I maintain that there IS a hazy line that you can draw parallel between ODI and test performance of Bangladesh. And you can see it in the information that I have provided.

Bangladesh started showing improvement in test during the series in Pakistan, and continued that through England, Zimbabwe and WI. Now, before Pakistan series, Bangladesh was doing horrible in test. And after the WI series, Bangladesh hasn't played any test. Now if you look at the 23 ODI results that I presented,you will see that Bangladesh also did better in Pakistan, England, Ziambabwe and WI series. Same way, we were doing worse before that, horrible in fact. Now if you do percieve a line there, given the recent horrible run in ODI, one can blamelessly be apprehensive about the coming series with Kiwis. Only thing is that, since we go through ups and downs, Bangladesh may give it a pull now. But in that case, it will be safe to assume that they will do comparatively better in ODIs too.

It is very easy to manipulate five years of inconsitant data.....and whatever conclusion you come to is yours own and nobody can change that. But I don't understand how that can form the basis of a flat comment like " Bangladesh will get their bottom kicked again and again they wont improve, i am sick of their losing matches".

It is understandable that we will be apprehensive.........but it is beyond me how Bangladesh's performance makes some one so pessimistic. I guess if some one follows the game without any reality check he is bound to be very disappointed. I'm not; I know the reality and the reality is Bangladesh has suffered in one-day and to some extent test matches because they have neglected their domestic cricket. The good thing is that the admistrators have understood that.............and hopefully they will not do the same mistake again.

And to speak about reality......................If I were to bet my money I will bet that bangladesh will losse all the matches to NZ. Even the worst of NZ batters are better than our best. The pacer that won't make NZ team will walk into Bangladesh team. So if you expect too much that will make you disappointed. Fwullah has compiled some very useful data which can form the basis of our expectation........a couple of centuries or 5 wicket haul or something like that. If wishes were horses...........Bangladesh would thrash Australia. It is OK to hope for anything but to actually talk as if those hopes are realistic is foolishness.

By the way........it may be foolishness on my part to make sense of your post.

" Bangladesh will get their bottom kicked again and again they wont improve, i am sick of their losing matches"

I thought you didn't take the above statement word by word, and rather took it as a way to vent the frustration of a fan. Too obvious to explain, but if the poster didn't really expect bangladesh to improve, he wouldn't have been posting here. And my assimilation to that post was nothing but to share my own frustration.

I am not sure what you meant by "five years of inconsistent data". Because that nullifies your conclusion that test performance was better the ODI, too. Because you too are justifying your stand from the same data. Anyway, I never denied that Bangladesh has been doing better in test than ODI. I found that too obvious to take the pain to prove that. My attempt was to refute the brooding idea that there was no functional relationship between the performances in both versions of the game.

Originally posted by nihi
" Bangladesh will get their bottom kicked again and again they wont improve, i am sick of their losing matches"

I thought you didn't take the above statement word by word, and rather took it as a way to vent the frustration of a fan. Too obvious to explain, but if the poster didn't really expect bangladesh to improve, he wouldn't have been posting here. And my assimilation to that post was nothing but to share my own frustration.

Read my above post again and see whether I understand that it was frustation or not. My point was that we don't need to be frustated.

Quote:

I am not sure what you meant by "five years of inconsistent data". Because that nullifies your conclusion that test performance was better the ODI, too. Because you too are justifying your stand from the same data. Anyway, I never denied that Bangladesh has been doing better in test than ODI. I found that too obvious to take the pain to prove that. My attempt was to refute the brooding idea that there was no functional relationship between the performances in both versions of the game.

The data was inconsitent in terms of your conclusion. It was not for my conclusion; which is plainly clear from your own statement above. if Bangladesh is doing better in tests when compared to ODI and our ODI performance is pathetic to say the least then how do you draw the parallel (functional????????????????????????)? Infact our test curve is consistantly upwards there is no glaring inconsistency. Becoming frustated just after we achieved our best test series result just does not make sense!!! It just gives fuel to detractors!! If you vent your frustation about one-day performance that I can understand. But I don't understand why we should not rejoice our relative success in test cricket in apprehension of unjustified doom!!! I'm repeating one thing.............our one-day debacle was entirely expected..........you can not introduce all these young players at once.............Everyone now subscribe to that view.................And some of us said it before!

Anyway guys! I divert you from your arguements.Kiwi security boss in city.
Security manager of New Zealand Cricket Dave Woodman arrived in the capital on Tuesday night to assess the safety measures ahead of the Bangladesh-New Zealand series that begins with a three-day match at BKSP from October 14.
Woodman yesterday visited the BKSP and the Bangabandhu National Stadium, which will host the first Test from October 19 and the last two one-day internationals.

The Kiwi security official will also go on a recce of Chittagong where the second Test and the first one-day match will take place.

Optimist, and those of you who support Optimist's view, isn't it logical that the good or bad performances of test cricket will influence the performances of ODI cricket? Similarly, the good or bad performances of ODI cricket will influence our performances in Test cricket?

So may be, the bad performances in the Asia Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy will affect performances in test cricket in the coming NZ series, at least there's a possibility.

Originally posted by fwullah
Optimist, and those of you who support Optimist's view, isn't it logical that the good or bad performances of test cricket will influence the performances of ODI cricket? Similarly, the good or bad performances of ODI cricket will influence our performances in Test cricket?

So may be, the bad performances in the Asia Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy will affect performances in test cricket in the coming NZ series, at least there's a possibility.

Your point may be valid to some extend, but we need to remember one thing that these two formats of cricket demands two different mind-sets. I believe that, one of the main reasons of failure of our top order batsmen in the ODIs is a huge pressure of expectation and resposibility on them. Whereas in tests the mind sets are quite different.

And I believe that our players will keep them ready for the test series not having been negetively influenced by their recent failures.

I guess the question of being influence is rather non-deterministic and of course depends upon the mind-set again. A dip in performance may down the moral of the players, or conversely may infuse the urge to spring back.

Intensity is what we had been missing in our game. Which is why such poor performance we tend to show in ODIs. And even in test, we have consistently failed to cope with the tense situation.

Originally posted by fwullah
Optimist, and those of you who support Optimist's view, isn't it logical that the good or bad performances of test cricket will influence the performances of ODI cricket? Similarly, the good or bad performances of ODI cricket will influence our performances in Test cricket?

So may be, the bad performances in the Asia Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy will affect performances in test cricket in the coming NZ series, at least there's a possibility.

I agree with you that bad one-day performance can influence test performance. But my argument is that our dismal one-day performance is entirely expected. Our young guns are just perfecting their techniques for survival. In one-day cricket one needs to improvise and adjust their game according to situation; that will only come with experience. But our goal in test cricket is very simple........survive. Each delivery our batsmen play will create additional pressure on the opponents. As the opponents are expected to win, they have to take all the initiatives. Recently John Bracewell have mentioned that in his interview. I don't think Ashraful will be asked to play his shots in test cricket which I bet was his instruction as an opener in one-day team. Rajin will also be able to play his occupying game. The only two players who will have the license to play their shots will be Habibul Bashar and Mohammed Rafique.

But please note that I'm not expecting Bangladesh to beat NZ. We will have to play out of our skin to even be competetive over five days. As you have mentioned earlier, our expectation should be some good individual performances. If 80% of the players can improve their batting and bowling averages that will do for me. I have no expectation for the one-dayers. Players like Javed Omar will not even make it to the UAE 11. But we have none better than him!!! Kenyan opening pair of Ravindu Shah and Kennedy Otiano is 20-times better than ours! It is beyond my imagination how we could loose players like Shariyar Hossain and Mehrab Hossain!!!! Based on their performances 5/6 years ago, they should have been in their prime now!!

yes i also think we can't really seperate TEST and ODI performances completely..

BD is still a developing team.. thats why performance in one version of the game (Test or ODI) influences the other naturally. Even for the stronger teams.. it is true!!

For example.. the constant improvement in the Test performances probably influenced the whole team positively and which gave us a very fighting ODI series vs. the WI'ans.. and even gave us a win vs. the ZIM's.

It's all about being morally boosted or demoralized..
good show in one version of the game surely helps the other... as the reverse is also true.